New Clone Wars Episode Explores An Ancient Rite Of Passage For All Jedi

November 1, 2012

“Build your own lightsaber, you shall. But first, harvest your crystal, each one of you must.”

Ahsoka escorts a group of younglings to Ilum, where they will learn from Yoda and undergo a crucial rite-of-passage: the construction of their lightsabers. They grapple with both physical and inner challenges as they face the dangerous task ahead of them in “The Gathering,” airing this Saturday, November 3rd at 9:30am ET/PT on Cartoon Network.

Episode Trivia:

· The opening prologue trailer to the episode features a rare flashback to before the Clone Wars, when Plo Koon discovered the baby Ahsoka Tano on an undisclosed planet, and brought her into the Jedi Order.

· The notion of lightsabers being powered by mystical crystals find their roots in the “Kyber crystal” concept in the early draft scripts of Star Wars, a mystical gem said to amplify the power of the Force.

· The symbols denoting the balance of the light side and dark side first seen in the realm of Mortis are visible in the temple entrance on Ilum. The markings that lined the halls of the Father’s Monastery on Mortis are also found within the Ilum temple.

· This episode introduces a Jedi youngling symbol worn as a patch on the students’ cold weather gear.

· The crystals are colorless until the young Jedi holds it, upon which it becomes attuned to the Force-user. This appears to be what governs the colors of Jedi lightsabers.

Daniel “Julius Marx” Pickett has been around toys his whole life. The first line he ever collected was Mego’s World’s Greatest Super Heroes line back in the 70s. He has been surrounded by collectables ever since.
In 1999 he was confounded by a lack of information and news about some of his favorite toy lines he was collecting. Since he couldn’t find the information he decided to pursue it himself thinking other people might also be interested in the same news. He started writing a weekly column on the toy industry and action figure for a toy news site and in a years time he tripled the sites daily traffic with his updates, reviews and product features.
He built relationships with every major toy manufacturer and many sculptors, painters and mold makers. He grew his hobby into a world wide expertise that the industry has embraced.
In 2004 he teamed up with his toy buddy Jason “ToyOtter” Geyer and they created their own website www.ActionFigureInsider.com.
Daniel has been quoted in both industry and mass media press outlets. Over the years Daniel and AFi have been sought out as experts in the field. Daniel was regularly featured on “Attack of the Show” on the G4 network as the primary contributor to their “Mint On Card” segment, and our front page has been linked to from USA Today’s
“Pop Candy” Blog twice. Daniel’s content has also been featured on MSNBC.com,
Wired.com, Fark.com, Boing-Boing, Gizmodo.com, Ain’t It Cool News, the Official
Star Wars blog, Geekologie, G4, CNet and Toy Fare magazine, among many
others. He has consulted on toy lines, books, documentaries and TV shows.
But all of that really just sounds snooty and “tootin’ his own horn” – the long and short of it is that Daniel loves toys and he LOVES talking about them.